


It's Only Time

by madeitsimple



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, De-Aged Peter Parker, Domestic Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, M/M, Parent Steve Rogers, Parent Tony Stark, Superfamily (Marvel), Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark is Good With Kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28421667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeitsimple/pseuds/madeitsimple
Summary: Tony is terrible at guessing ages. The kid looks to be about three, maybe four. “Do you know who I am?”The boy squinches up his face, searching his memory. “You’re Mr. Stark!”“That’s right,” Tony says, still totally amazed. “Hi, Peter.”He holds out his hand again. This time, Peter takes it.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Steve Rogers, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 35
Kudos: 503





	It's Only Time

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken a lot of liberties with Avengers cannon as well as science.

No one quite knows how it happens.

Tony is in his lab, elbow deep in upgrades to the Spider suit, when FRIDAY overrides his Do Not Disturb protocol for the second time in 20 minutes.

“Boss, it’s Dr. Banner. It sounds urgent.”

“Tell him I’m out. Seriously, what is the point of having a DND protocol if no one’s going to respect it.”

“Tony,” Bruce’s voice come through the system anyway. “You need to come down to the hanger. Right now.”

“I’m a little busy, Bruce. Unless you’re turning into a big, green stomping machine it can—”

“It can’t wait. Trust me. Down to the hanger.”

“Bruce—”

“Tony, I’m not kidding around. Hanger. NOW.”

There’s real bite in his voice, which makes Tony push aside his work. He runs more than walks down to the large steel and glass enclosed building where all the truly crazy Avengers shit happens. He’s hurrying down the long atrium when Steve comes around a corner, also at a clip.

“Bruce call you, too?” he asks

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Any idea what’s wrong?”

Tony shakes his head as they rush down the corridor. Steve reaches the main door first, punching in the code as Tony rears up from behind.

“Bruce?” Tony calls, walking through the large steel doors. On the surface, everything looks normal. No smoke billowing out of broken windows, no visible structural damage.

“Dr. Banner, everything OK?”

They exchange a look, expecting the Hulk maybe, or a gamma experiment gone wrong, but what they see hardly justifies the sprint they just made. Bruce is standing, hands on his hips, in a far corner of the room used mostly for storage. A few feet away, a little boy stares up at him.

“Bruce?” Tony stands next to him, eyes finally taking in the child. He has to clear his vision more than once, not totally believing his eyes.

“I don’t know what happened,” Bruce says, shaking his head. “The dynamometer in my lab registered a massive energy surge so I came to have a look. I walked in here and he was just...like that.”

“What the fuck,” Tony says, getting a few feet closer. The boy is dressed in a familiar red t-shirt that comes down to his knees. His hair is a mess of brown curls, ears a little too big for his head. Tony can’t believe it, not at all, but the features are far too similar to ignore.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks, standing between them. “Dr. Banner, who is this?”

“Hey buddy,” Tony says in wonderment. He crouches down until he’s looking into familiar big, brown eyes.

“Something like this...it shouldn’t be possible. Not really.” Bruce runs a hand through his hair, mouth still agape.

The boy eyes Tony wearily, but he doesn’t run. Just shuffles from one bare foot to the other. Tony holds out his hand, but the boy doesn’t move.

“You said a bad word,” the kid says.

“I know. I’m just really surprised is all.”

“Wait, is that—” Steve stops mid sentence, just catching on.

Tony is terrible at guessing ages, the kid looks to be about three, maybe four. “Do you know who I am?”

The boy squinches up his face, searching his memory. “You’re Mr. Stark!”

“That’s right,” Tony says, still totally amazed. “Hi, Peter.”

He holds out his hand again. This time, Peter takes it.

***

All they have are questions and no good answers.

“How did this happen?” Steve paces the length of the large living area Tony’s commandeered as his own private space.

“Are we sure it’s him? Do we need to do a DNA test or anything?” Natasha says. She’s perched on the edge of the sofa along with Sam, having been summoned there by Bruce.

“We’re sure,” Tony says, looking down at the mop of brown hair. Peter’s curled around his leg, his face half buried in Tony’s pants. “We found his clothes near Scott’s van, plus the video log shows Peter in the hanger. He comes in, looks around and boom, everything just flashes to white.“

“Peter’s a 17-year-old kid. He can’t just revert back to being baby,” Steve says.

“I’m not a baby!” Peter peers out from behind Tony’s leg, turning a comical glare on Steve. “Babies are dumb! I’m four years old!”

Tony has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling and sees Steve doing the same, but Sam barks out a laugh. “I mean, this is crazy and all but he’s so cute. Look at him. Look at those ears. I wanna pinch those little cheeks so hard.” He strokes the back of a finger against Peter’s chubby cheek, who doesn’t seem to mind. He just buries his face into Tony’s thigh and does his level best to give Steve the stink eye.

There are questions as to what Peter remembers, what he doesn’t. On the way up from the hanger, Tony had asked gentle but probing questions, that elicited little information. He knew who he was, knew Tony and Steve and the Avengers, but blanked at mentions of Spider-Man or his parents.

“Juice,” Peter says, looking up at Tony. “I want juice.”

“I mean, even for us, this is weird,” Natasha says. “How are we supposed to change him back?”

“That’s the real question, isn’t it?” Steve asks. “There’s got to be some way to reverse this.”

Peter tugs at his pants again, this time raising his arms, waiting to be picked up. He’s surprisingly light in Tony’s arms, his head resting perfectly against Tony’s shoulder.

“Bruce, how do we even—”

“Juice! I want juice!” Peter practically screams in his ear.

“Right,” Bruce says, moving for the door. “That’s what we need to get working on.” He heads off to find Stephen Strange, appoints Natasha and Sam to track down Scott Lang and Hope. “We’ve got this end of the problem, you handle…” Bruce waves in Peter’s general direction. “Everything else.”

“Wait,” Tony starts to protest, to tell them he has no idea how to take care of a kid, when Peter starts kicking his legs against his side.

“I! Want! Juice!”

Right, juice it is.

***

“What was Peter doing in the hanger anyway?” Steve asks. He, at least, didn’t abandon Tony.

“I don’t know.” He sits Peter down on the kitchen island and digs through the refrigerator for juice. “I think he tried to tell me.”

“What do you mean, tried to tell you?”

“I was in the lab, with the DND protocol on.” Tony says, the guilt already wiggling inside his brain. “His, you know, spidey sense must have gone off.” He pulls out a glass and fills it to the brim with juice, but Steve takes it from his hand before he can give it to Peter.

“He’ll spill that all over his shirt.” Steve finds a smaller tumbler, fills it halfway and hands it to Peter, who turns up his nose.

“I want red juice!”

It’s not clear if he’s being obstinate because he’s a thirsty toddler or because he’s still holding Steve’s baby remark against him. “Buddy, we don’t have red juice,” Tony says. “We have this juice and we have about a million different types of beer in that fridge. Right now, this is your best bet.” Tony holds out the glass, which, after a moment of dithering, Peter reluctantly takes.

“Tony, I know what’s going on inside that head of yours. Don’t make what happened today about Manila because —”

“More juice!”

Peter holds out his glass, cutting their conversation short.

“Can we talk about this later?” Tony says, pouring more juice. “Maybe when we don’t suddenly have a four-year-old juice junkie deal with?

Steve purses his lips, but doesn’t push further. “Fine,” he says. He grabs his jacket, moving towards the door. “Don’t give him too much. That’s all sugar, he’ll bounce off the walls.”

“Where the hell are you going?” Tony balks at being the only adult in the room, but Steve doesn’t answer, just gives him a little wave on his way out.

“Fuck,” Tony curses and Peter’s eyes go huge. “Sorry, buddy. I’m a little stressed out.”

Peter just giggles, blowing bubbles in his juice. He swings his legs off the island, hitting the cabinets with a light thud, looking up at Tony with big, trusting eyes. It’s the same look, Tony realizes with a pang, that 17-year-old Peter gives him all the time. Peter hasn’t cried, or asked for his parents or even asked for May. That last bit, Tony realizes, is something he can’t put off any longer. He pulls out his phone and makes the call.

“Hi, May. It’s Tony Stark. Listen, I’m going to tell you something that you are absolutely not going to believe.”

***

She doesn’t believe it, not until she’s standing in front of a four-year old Peter, who is running around the sofa waving a dish towel in the air. May grills him on everything he knows, which isn’t much, and at the end of their hushed conversation tries to scoop Peter up to take him home. A part of him wants to protest, but she’s right, Tony has no idea how to deal with kids, he’s better off at May’s, with a real parent.

It’s a surprise to them both when Peter jerks out of her arms. “I don’t wanna go! I’m staying with Mr. Stark!”

There are tears, even a little tussle as May tries to wrangle Peter out the door, until finally, he wraps himself around Tony’s leg, clearly upset.

“It’s not clear what he remembers,” Tony says by way of apology. “Do you...you can stay here until he’s back to normal, if you want.”

May shakes her head. ”I can’t get close to this Peter,” she says. “I don’t think I’d be able to let him go.” She smooths back Peter’s hair and gathers up her coat and bag. “Ben and I never had kids. I always wanted a baby, but not like this. Fix him, Tony. Fix him now.”

Tony slumps into the couch after May leaves as Peter pulls every book off the shelf and stacks it in the middle of the room. Occasionally, he’ll bring a book to Tony and hand it to him like a present. He smiles wide, like it’s the greatest gift anyone’s every given anyone else.

Fix him. But fix him how?

Tony’s never been a kid person, hasn’t —well, not until recently anyway—felt any kind of paternal stirring or need. Now though, he looks at Peter’s little legs and lopsided ears, and affection wars with a sense of panic. He’s about to ask FRIDAY to look up the best nannies in New York when Steve pushes through the door, hands full of shopping bags.

“He could probably use some pants,” is all he says.

Tony could kiss him. Probably should kiss him.

“Buddy, how about some underwear?”

Peter comes willingly when Tony sits down on the floor and holds out a pair of Iron Man underpants. He also consents to squirming into pair of soft gray joggers, but, for the hell of it, makes Tony chase him around the room a few times before wiggling into a t-shirt covered in little red dinosaurs. He pokes at the figures on his chest, mangling pronunciations of tyrannosaurs and stegosaurus and diplodocus. When Tony laughs, he throws his arms around Tony’s neck, going limp until Tony picks him up. He nestles into Tony’s side, listing comfortably as Tony rubs his back. From across the room, Steve stares at them both, a look Tony can’t quite decipher.

“You hungry, kiddo?” Tony asks. Peter nods against his chest. He could have the kitchen send something up, but he rips open of a box of macaroni and cheese instead.

“I think no fewer than 300 people saw me buying clothes at the store,” Steve says, reshelving books while they wait for the macaroni to cook. “And everyone had their cameras out. I think we’re in for a news cycle of “ _Captain America has secret love child_.”

Tony shrugs. “Better than ‘ _Spider-Man accidental reverts back to four-year-old self_.”

He doesn’t add that they have staff to run errands, that stores do online delivery and feels a rush of fondness, imagining Steve picking between colors and sizes, his brow furrowed, considering seriously if Peter would prefer dinosaurs over jungle animals and in the end just getting both.

“Come on, let’s eat.”

He portions the food out into the three bowls. They stand shoulder to shoulder against the counter while Peter sits in one of the high backed chairs along the island. The fork doesn’t quiet fit into his hand, but Peter does his best, cramming noodles into his face. For a few minutes, no one is fighting, no one is screaming, and it actually feels pretty nice.

***

Bruce is the first to make his way back to Tony’s, Stephen Strange in tow. In his dark jeans and cowl neck sweater Strange has a more grandfatherly than sorcerer vibe. He sits next to Peter, who they’ve managed to subdue with cartoons, and makes complicated motions with his finger tips, streaks of light trailing in his wake.

“I don’t think it’s a spell,” he says after awhile.

“Shit.”

“There’s no trail, nothing that I can detect that says this might be some kind of magic. Plus, who would want to do this?”

Spider-Man is formidable in his own right, but Peter doesn’t have arch enemies quite yet. They toss out theories while SpongeBob SquarePants blares in the background. Peter’s eyes are practically glazed over by the time Natasha and Sam come back with Scott Lang and Hope. Tony knows a hell of a lot about a lot of things, but she’s the expert in the quantum realm and he’s grateful to have her. Scott, it turns out, is the best with kids.

“Alright kiddo, that’s enough television.” He flicks off the TV and within minutes, they’ve built an impressive fort of sofa cushions. Tony watches, one ear on Hope and Bruce’s conversation, the other listening to Peter screech with delight as he body crawls around the living room.

“I don’t want to say this, but if you found him next to Scott’s van, I think we have to consider the tunnel.” Hope says.

“It’s too risky. No way.” Tony dismisses the idea out of hand, his jaw tightening.

“What are we talking about here? Can someone fill me in?” Steve asks.

Bruce scratches at his three-day beard, reluctant to even get into it. “The quantum tunnel might be why Peter de-aged. What’s happening here...it’s like...Peter got pushed backward through time.”

“We don’t know that,” Tony snaps. “Whatever this is...it could wear off. Until we know more about what happened, we can’t risk it.”

“What are the risks?” Steve looks between them. From the living room there’s another burst of laughter as Peter clambers up and over the back of the sofa. With Scott’s help, he goes up, tumbles down and the two repeat the cycle.

“He might not come back,” Hope says. “The quantum realm is unstable...one glitch and he goes subatomic, like my mother.”

Tony pushes back his chair, mind made up. “It’s not an option.”

“Tony—” Steve turns to him.

“We don’t know anything. We don’t know why this happened, what his body’s going through. He’s my responsibility, Steve. I’m not sticking the kid into a goddamn quantum tunnel on a whim.”

“OK. OK.” Steve puts a hand on his arm, placating. “Bruce, can we keep trying to clean up that video from the hanger? Right now, it’s a just a blur of white light. Hope, can you run some tests? Figure out if there’s any radiation or anything that might tell us what happened? Stephen, I know you haven’t been a doctor in awhile, but can we make sure Peter’s healthy?”

He doles out instructions, treating this like any other mission, while Tony grips the edge of his chair till his knuckles turn white. The thought of sending even a grown Peter into the tunnel would make his stomach churn. He’s not doing it to a kid whose cheeks are still all baby fat.

One by one, the team scatters. As they leave, Peter jumps up to high-five everyone on their way out.

“Come on kid, time for bed,” Tony says, picking him up when things are quiet again.

“I’m not sleepy,” Peter protests but he drops his head on Tony’s shoulder, his thumb reaching for the edge of Tony’s collar, like a security blanket.

He thinks about the room Peter usually sleeps in when he’s here, all the way at the other end of the residence wing. “How about you bunk with me tonight?” Tony says. “That way I can make sure you don’t run off and break into the fridge for more juice.”

“Can I have juice,” Peter asks, already drowsy. He nuzzles into Tony’s neck, like he’d be happy just settling here for the night.

“Not a chance. You’re already mostly sugar.”

“Maybe in the morning?”

“Maybe in the morning,” Tony concedes.

He takes Peter to his room, and settles him into the far end of the bed. “You gotta pee or anything? I don’t want any accidents in my bed.” Tony tucks the blanket up around shoulders. Peter blinks sleepily as Tony pushes back his hair. “You good, kid?”

Peter nods, but he keeps one hand curled tightly around Tony’s fingers, so Tony stays with him, running his free hand through Peter’s hair until his breath evens out and his grip goes slack.

***

“How is he?” Steve is waiting for him when he tiptoes out of the bedroom, putting the sofa cushions back in place.

“The cleaning staff can do all that,” he says but Steve just shrugs, unable to stand even a little disorder. “He’s fine. Went out like a light.”

“How are you?” Steve folds a stray blanket, tosses it over the arm of the couch.

“Exhausted,” Tony says, delighting in flopping down on the sofa just set to right. “Terrified. Probably still trying to convince myself this is some crazy dream.” He scrubs his hands through his hair, realizing its the first time all day they’ve been alone. “Thank you for doing all that stuff earlier. The clothes and the toys,”

Steve shrugs again. “Kids need clothes, Tony.”

“Do you think he needs a stuffed animal? I used to have a bear I couldn’t sleep without,” he muses absently as Steve move around, pushing chairs in, placing empty glasses and dishes in the sink, until he can’t find anything else to tidy up. He leans against the sink, waiting for Tony to break the silence.

“I think he tried to tell me,” Tony says finally, picking up their conversation from earlier. He gets up, begins to pace, reliving the moment in his head. “‘ _Boss, Peter wants to know if you’re free_.’”

“Tony—”

“Not unless its urgent, I said. I was wrapped in the suits and I thought—” Tony stares at the floor. “I thought, it can wait a few minutes.”

“You had no idea what it was about,” Steve says quietly.

“Still, my track record for the past two weeks hasn’t been great, has it? I wasn’t there today and I wasn’t there in Manila.”

Steve shakes his head. “Don’t do that. Missions are dangerous, Tony. They always will be.”

Tony leans against the dining table, meeting Steve’s eye. “I stayed here. I stayed here and let you and Peter run the rescue.”

“It was my plan,” Steve says. “It was supposed to be a normal hostage rescue. We didn’t know we’d need air support or heavy weaponry.”

“You and Peter were offline for 20 minutes. You both came back beat to shit. The kid needed 3 hours in a hyperbaric chamber to restore his lung function.”

“Then blame me for it, if you want.”

“I don’t blame you,” he says.

Had Steve been conscious when they arrived back at the compound, Tony might have laid into him, but he was deathly pale, they both were, from being trapped under water for so long. They’d been sent to help with a hostage situation on a military station outside Manila. During the rescue, a crane had exploded, half a ton of metal trapping Steve and Peter at the bottom of the South China Sea.

“I know that’s the trade off here, with what we do. But watching you both—” He has to stop and clear the emotion from his throat. “Watching you both struggle to breathe was not an experience I care to relieve ever again.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, but his jaw twitches. He has been in Tony’s spot before. Waiting, watching in the medical wing.

“The kid is my responsibility, Steve.” He keeps going, before Steve can protest. “Before he’s anyone else’s responsibility, he’s mine. I have to keep him safe. I have to make sure he makes it back to May every night. You get that right? I wasn’t there in Manila, and I wasn’t there tonight.”

“This is not the same thing. The protocols you put in place worked Tony,” Steve says. “The Iron Man suits launched and they pulled us out. I know you think if you just work hard enough, you’ll be able to protect him from everything, but that is never going to be the case.”

“When they brought you up, your lungs were so water logged they were worried even your healing ability wouldn’t be enough. Peter’s lips were as blue are your cowl.”

“Look at me,” Steve says. He takes Tony by the shoulders and leans in close enough that Tony can smell the barest hint of his cologne. A woodsy, spicy sent. Like winter in New England. Had it been a different kind of day, Tony might have leaned in and kissed him. “We made it out didn’t we? We’re alright.”

It’s no one’s fault, Tony knows that, just a consequence of the superhero game, and yet, days later, he still hears Peter’s ragged breathing in his head.

“Yeah,” Tony says. “This time.”

Steve curves the palm of his hand around Tony’s neck, his thumb rubbing lightly just under the jaw.

“You should rest,” he says, before dropping his hand. “Peter’s going to need you tomorrow.”

***

Despite his fears to the contrary, Tony has no problems falling asleep.

He shuts his eyes one moment and the next, the jostling of the mattress wakes him. Just enough morning sunlight streams through the curtains, lighting the bedroom a deep yellow. On the other side of the bed, Peter plays with two action figures. He grins when he sees Tony’s awake.

“I’m not supposed to wake anyone up in the morning,” he says in a bad attempt at a whisper. “My mom says I have to play quietly so the adults can sleep.”

“Well I appreciate that, thank you.” Tony yawns, everything from yesterday coming back in a rush. He turns to his side, lifting his arm from under the covers. “Do you remember your mom, buddy?’

Peter nods, his expression blank. “She died. In a crash.” He marches the Black Widow figure over to Tony, making her crawl across his arm. The Hulk one he makes stomp across the bed.

“Peter, what else do you remember?”

Peter shrugs. “I don’t know. Lots of things.”

“Do you remember a big flash of light that happened yesterday? When you were in the hanger?”

Peter sits back on his legs and considers Tony’s question. Instead of answering, he launches both action figures into Tony’s side, cackling maniacally as Tony tries to squirm away and that’s the end of that conversation. Now that Tony’s officially awake, Peter crawls all over the bed, enacting an epic but hardly realistic battle scenario, jumping around until he lands in an excited and victorious heap across Tony’s chest.

“Now that you’re done saving the world, how about breakfast?” Tony asks.

Peter nods enthusiastically. He climbs over Tony, little toes digging into Tony’s sternum, an elbow poking him in the stomach. He’s barely patient while Tony pulls on a sweatshirt and tugs at his arm all the way to the kitchen.

They eat cereal. Tony makes some toast and pours some juice, and it’s the last quiet minute he has all day. People start streaming in before he’s finished his first cup of coffee. Bruce informs him he’s going check for energy signatures in the hanger, Hope and Scott want a blood sample to see if Peter’s cell are aging and when Sam comes by with Natasha, he throws Peter up into the air until Tony’s worried his breakfast is going to come vomiting out.

The team takes to having a child around not just seamlessly, but with barely concealed joy. There’s anxiety sure —Peter not being Peter is cause for concern—but the four-year-old version of Peter is too cute to resist. After Sam’s done hurling him up in the air, Tony gets him dressed and ready for Natasha to take him down to the simulation room.

“You be good for Nat alright?” Tony zips up the little gray hoodie Steve bought for him. “One wrong move and she’ll kick you through a door.”

Peter giggles. ‘No, she won’t.”

“She will. She’s ruthless. Even to little kids.”

Peter just laughs and runs to take her hand. Tony doesn’t see them till right before lunch, when he bursts into the lab and launches himself into Tony’s arms with an unexpected glee.

“We did simulations,” he says. “I wore pads here, here, here and here,” Peter points to each knee, each elbow, before pointing to his head. “And a helmet. It was cool!” For the next 10 minutes he talks non stop about watching Natasha weave and dodge and bust her way through digital bad guys.

Sam picks him up after they eat. “Alright little man, we got some important equipment inventory to get done. You’re gonna help me count. You ready to be my second in command?” Sam sticks out his hand for a low-five and Peter slaps it enthusiastically. Things seem to be going smoothly until around 3pm, when Sam hauls a screaming Peter back into Tony’s lab. He practically leaps out of Sam’s arms but even as Tony picks him up, he tries to wriggle free. On instinct, Tony squeezes him tighter.

“Buddy, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer, just lets out a miserable wail in Tony’s ear. It doesn’t sound like pain exactly, but the cry of someone utterly fed up with everything. Tony runs his fingers through Peter’s hair, ignores the little kicks Peter’s making against his side.

“I don’t know a lot about kids,” Sam says, “But it sounds like he needs a nap.”

That elicits a louder shrike but Tony just kisses the side of his face, shushing him softly.

“Alright, I know you’re tired, it’s OK.” Tony rubs his back all the way up the elevator and down the hall. By the time he enters his quarters, the kid is passed out cold. To his surprise, the room’s been rearranged. The sofa and coffee table have been have been shifted and a small play area has been set up in the corner. Steve, who he hasn’t seen all day, is tightening up the last of the screws on a small, kid size desk. Paper, crayons, books and more toys are stacked neatly in a corner.

“He can’t watch TV all day, Tony. He’ll rot his brain.”

“Thanks,” Tony says, a little dumbly, the same flood of affection back again.

“Here,” Steve rummages for something inside a paper sack. He pulls out a tattered teddy bear, one that looks awfully familiar, and hands it to Tony.

“Where—” Tony’s speechless.

“I went through your dad’s archive. You’d be surprised how detailed FRIDAY’s indexes are.”

“My mom probably kept it,” Tony says, taking it. “Dad wasn’t that sentimental.”

“Still, I thought Peter might want it.”

“He’ll love it,” Tony says, his face flush with warmth.

Steve hovers in the doorway as Tony puts Peter down, making sure to tuck the bear securely under his arm.

***

Somewhere in the afternoon, Tony keeps meaning to go back to the lab to help Bruce but lingers in the apartment with Steve instead. When Peter wakes up from his nap, Tony swipes away what little work he managed to stare at and they tear open a giant LEGO spaceship set.

“They had a model of a QuinJet, but thought I’d switch it up,” Steve says from the kitchen. There are groceries out and Tony has the sneaking suspicion he’s making dinner.

Still drowsy from his nap, Peter parks himself in Tony’s lap, chewing on the ear of the bear Steve managed to dig up.

“I get to snap all the big pieces together,” Peter says. He watches as Tony tries to organize the mess of blocks, before finally getting frustrated enough to do it himself.

“No, like this,” he orders and starts to separate the blocks by color.

“You’re telling me I’m doing LEGOs wrong? I have a degree from MIT you know that right?”

“It goes like this,” Peter says and from then on it’s easier to follow his four-year-old logic. They’ve built almost half the ship when Steve stands over the play area.

“It’s just herb chicken, but I think he’ll eat it. Ready for dinner, Pete?”

Tony sets the table, and they negotiate a three bites of dinner to one sip of juice ratio for Peter before they sit down to eat.

“We never did this,” Tony says, spearing some broccoli with a fork. “Even as a kid. Dad was always somewhere else, Mom tried her best. I usually ate with a nanny or by myself.”

“It was just me and my mom,” Steve says. He cuts up Peter’s chicken, and pushes the juice glass slightly of spilling range. “Sometimes Bucky too, but it was nice.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Mr. Stark I ate two bites of food!” Peter announces before taking another mouthful of chicken.

Steve smiles. “I miss a lot of things.”

“You know, we could do more of this,” Tony waves his fork between them, blushing for some incredibly stupid reason. “I mean, if you wanted.”

“I ate three bites! Can I have some juice!”

“Yeah, we should,” Steve says. Even from across the table he can see the color rise in Steve’s face. “I mean, if you wanted.”

***

They’re halfway through the dishes when the door chimes. It’s Bruce and Hope. One look at their faces tell him it isn’t good news. Bruce has always had a shit poker face but it’s the way he pauses in the doorway that Tony realizes he needs to take a seat to hear this.

“We weren’t able to clean up the video, but I was able to pull the energy signatures from around the hanger,” Bruce starts. He throws up video from his tablet and slows down the footage of Peter entering the room.

“Everything’s normal for a few seconds but look at this moment here.” He pauses the frame as Peter steps into the room. He magnifies it, resets the filters and strips out all the color. Already, there’s a large signature coming off of Scott’s van in the corner.

“What the hell is that?”

Bruce advances the video a few frames and the glow around Scott’s van gets larger.

“That’s the Quantum Tunnel,” Hope says. “It fired up remotely while Peter was in the room.”

“It what?” It's only Steve’s hand on his shoulder that keeps him in his chair.

“Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne were testing new uses for Pym particles,” Bruce says and Tony groans.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“They used the tunnel in the lab but it looks like some kind of….remote connection activated the one in Scott’s van,” Hope says.

“I knew that thing was a menace. Didn’t I say we needed it off the compound?” He points an accusing finger at Bruce, because he needs someone to blame right now.

“It’s like our time traveling experiments,” Bruce says. “Peter had time go through him, not the other way around.”

“So where does that leave us?” Steve asks.

“There’s only one way out of this Tony,” Bruce says quietly.

“No.” Tony slams his palm against the table, making them all jump. Even Peter looks up from his coloring. “No. Figure something else out. We’re not sticking him in that god damn unstable environment. It’s too risky.”

“Mr. Stark, it’s what got him to the state he’s in—” Hope starts but he stops her with a glare.

“I’m telling you there’s not a chance in hell I put that kid,” he stops, thinking about the little lump that was curled in his bed. “That I put Peter through something so dangerous.”

“Is there a chance it just wears off?” Steve asks.

Hope shakes her head. “That’s not likely. The worst case scenario is that his cells start to age too rapidly, or that his physiological response isn’t in line with his mental response.”

“His memories,” Tony says, remembering Peter talking about his mother this morning. “His memories are coming back. In bits and spurts.”

Bruce cruses under his breath.

“Yesterday, he had no idea who May was. Today, he remembers her and his parents. Things are coming back to him.”

“I know you don’t want to do this Tony, but —”

Steve cuts them off before they start arguing again. “Dr. Banner, Dr. Van Dyne, how much time do you think we can stall for?” Gone is the guy who helped dry while Tony washed, the mission leader taking his place.

“A day or two. We need to run a few simulations, see if we can sharpen the odds.” Hope says. “The sooner we can get him back, the better.”

“Can you stabilize the tunnel in that time? Even just a little?”

Hope hesitates just a second too long. “We can try.”

“May needs to know,” Tony says.

“She’ll follow your call Tony,” Bruce says. “In the end, it’s up to you.”

He looks at Peter, bent over the desk Steve put together, concentrating on a drawing of some kind, his brow furrowed in a distinctly Peter-like expression.

“Hey, kid, bathtime. Come on.” Tony pushes back his chair as Peter lets out a long groan of protest. He leans over and takes an exaggerated sniff of Peter’s hair. ‘Yep, you smell like stinky socks. Time to hose you down.”

“No I don’t,” Peter yelps as Tony picks him up without ceremony. Bruce grabs his hand as he passes the table.

“Tony, we have to make a call.”

“I’ll call May” Tony says finally. “It’s her decision too.”

He runs Peter a bath in the giant tub he never uses. He fills it to the top with bubbles and hot water and throws as many toys as Peter asks for. In the end, it’s just a soup of brightly colored plastic bobbing between stiff, soapy peaks.

“Can I come in?” The door cracks an inch, Steve’s face peering through.

“What do you think Peter, is Steve allowed in?”

“Ummmmm yeah,” he says, dive bombing an action figure into the suds and splashing water all over the floor. Some of it gets on Tony’s t-shirt, in his hair, on his face.

“You might actually stay drier if you get into the tub with him.” Steve sits on the closed toilet, arms already folded across his chest.

“Are you the emissary? Sent to get me to pay attention to reason?”

“I don’t have to,” Steve says. “You already know it needs to happen Tony. You just have to say yes.”

“You guys are all awfully eager to send this kid into god knows where and never get him back.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it.”

“What I know is that the failure rate for this is probably around 60%. What I have to decide is if I’m willing to live with the consequences.”

“Tony—”

“Are you talking about me?” Peter pauses pretending to swim through the tub.

“Yes,” Tony says. “We’ve got to make a big decision about you. About making you big again.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t look concerned about it in the least, just grins up at Tony. “When I’m big I help you fight!” He presses his middle fingers into his palm, activating imaginary web shooters. Tony catches Steve’s eye. More memories.

“It’s not that simple, Peter. Something bad could happen.”

Peter fills up a plastic cup of water and dumps it all over his head, screeching with laughter as the bubbles run into his eyes. He blows a raspberry, spewing dirty bath water out of his mouth. Kids, Tony has learned, are sometimes pretty gross.

“I’m not scared,” he says, swishing his arms in the suds. “You’re Iron Man. You make sure I don’t get hurt.”

“Well, that’s my job,” Tony says, looking directly at Steve. “To make sure you don’t get hurt.”

“No,” Peter says. He fills up another cup with water, this time throwing it in a wide semicircle and splashing Tony’s dress shirt. “Your job is Iron Man. You fight bad guys.”

Steve smothers a laugh and kneels with Tony next to the tub. He rolls up his sleeves and plunges his hands into the bathwater. He scoops water into one hand and presses the other one on top, in a sliding gesture. The friction causes the water to squirt out, hitting Peter all over his face. The kid loves it. He howls with laughter and makes Steve do it again and again, until there’s more water on them than in the tub.

***

This time, they do bedtime properly.

From the stack of clothing Steve’s piled in a corner of Tony’s closet, he pulls out a set of jungle print pajamas and helps Peter change. He stands outside the door while Peter uses the bathroom and then lifts him up so he can wash his hands and brush his teeth. Finally, after a glass of water and a denied request to watch cartoons, Peter crawls into Tony’s bed, clutching the well loved bear. He smashes it into his face, sniffs deeply and squeezes it with all its might.

“Can we read a story?” he says through a yawn.

Tony dims the lights, slips off his shoes and props himself up next to Peter, who immediately snuggles into his side. They read Where the Wild Things Are, Tony’s voice dropping naturally into the rhythm of the words. Peter’s attention is rapt and he giggles when Tony uses his monster voice and there’s a soft blossoming of warmth inside his chest, unlike anything Tony’s ever experienced before. Tony knows about love, has fallen in and out of it a few times in his life, but this is something deeper, something unswayable. He’s always been protective of Peter, felt admiration and pride at watching him grow, but feeling the soft rise and fall of his chest so close to him makes his heart ache in a different way. Makes him wonder how anything he’s ever done for Peter could be enough.

He’s tempted to lie there, but there are too many intrusive thoughts for him to rest. He untangles himself from Peter’s grip, and sneaks out of the room. He gets FRIDAY to set the Baby Monitor protocol and heads for the lab. There’s not much they can do with the tunnel, but they can give Peter a suit, like Scott’s, so at least he has a fighting chance.

***

Tony’s ability to focus is one of his greatest strengths and sometimes his biggest weaknesses. In his lab, everything else falls away and he keeps to the task at hand, running equations, modeling different particle scenarios until it’s well past midnight. He’s lost in his work, factoring in quantum variations on cell regeneration when FRIDAY sends him an alert.

“Boss, it’s Peter.”

He’s out the door before she says anything else, taking the steps to his room in a sprint. He bursts through the doors to find Peter, sitting up in bed, wailing in fear.

“Peter, Peter what’s wrong.”

Peter cries louder—sharp, hysterical sobs piercing the air—as Tony reaches the bed. He throws his arms around Tony’s neck, clutching him tightly.

“Hey, hey it’s OK. I’m here.” Tony smoothes his hands through Peter’s damp hair, shushing him softly. “Peter what happened, it’s OK. You’re OK.”

Peter digs his fingers into Tony’s neck, burying his face. “There was a monster,” he manages to gasp between sobs. “It was chasing me.”

Tony lies down next to him, rubbing his back gently. “It was just a dream Peter,” he whispers, his own heart hammering in sympathy. “Nothing’s going to hurt you. I’m right here. You’re alright.” Tony kisses the side of his face, murmuring reassurances into Peter’s ear until his grip relaxes just the slightest.

“It was real big,” Peter whispers in awe, as Tony wipes at his face with the sleeve of his shirt. He abandons the idea of going back to the lab and kicks off his shoes, Peter attached to his side like a koala.

“Do you remember what you dreamt about”

“It could fly,” Peter says. His little hand finds the edge of Tony’s shirt collar again, rubbing it idly. “It had big machine wings that were always moving and big, green eyes.”

“You’re safe from it, Peter. You don’t have to worry about him.”

“Did you fight that monster?” Peter asks, his voice a low mumble.

“No, you did actually. When you were bigger.”

“Oh,” he says, not sounding all that surprised. “Did I win?”

“Yeah buddy, you won.”

Tony rubs slow circles on his back, talks softly to him until Peter drifts off. He sleeps soundly for he rest of the night, but Tony stays awake for a long time, thinking about the past, the future and the trusting little body glued to his side.

There are no seismic shifts happening in his bed the next morning. Peter wakes before him again but instead of jumping around like a little rabbit all over Tony’s high thread count sheets, he’s subdued, flying his bear around in a little circle.

“Feeling alright, buddy?” Tony’s voice is scratchy from sleep, his throat parched.

Peter shrugs but smiles when Tony promises him an extra glass of juice with his breakfast. It’s hardly a routine, but just like the day before, Tony throws on a sweatshirt, pours some cereal and cracks two eggs into a pan. They’re halfway through eating when the door chimes.

“Thought I’d check in, see how you’re doing,” Steve says, taking a seat at the island. He takes the last forkful of eggs from Tony’s plate, nodding his approval. He’s already dressed for the day, dark jeans matched with a gray t-shirt and thin hoodie, and even with everything going on, Tony manages to appreciate the cling of fabric around his biceps, the way his shirt has rucked up to reveal a hint of flat stomach.

“Good question. How are we doing this morning, Peter?”

“OK,” he decides.

“Just OK?” Steve asks.

“We had a bad dream last night,” he says, running a hand over Peter’s hair. “But nothing that’s going to ruin our day, right?”

Peter nods but he doesn’t look convinced and Tony hates seeing his face so somber. A subdued Peter is an unhappy Peter, and that’s never sat will with him, no matter what age Peter is.

“You know, I have bad dreams too,” Steve says.

Peter looks up, intrigued. “You do?”

“Yeah, sometimes they are very scary but sometimes they just make me sad.”

He has Peter’s full attention now. “Do you dream about monsters?”

“Sometimes,” Steve says. “Sometimes I dream I’m falling out of the sky and sometimes I dream I’m looking for my friends and I can’t find them.” He meets Tony’s eyes, but for only a second before looking away.

“Do you get scared?” Peter’s voice is small.

“Yeah,” Steve says, petting Peter’s hair. “I get scared.”

“I get scared too.” He looks up at Steve with an almost unbearable earnestness. “I was scared last night, but then Mr. Stark let me sleep next to him.”

“He did, huh?” The corner of Steve’s mouth tips up in a smile. “Well, that was very nice of him.”

“It makes me feel better,” Peter says. “Maybe if you have bad dreams, Mr. Stark will let you sleep next to him too.”

Tony almost chokes on his coffee, but Steve’s smile turns into a smirk. “You know, I think that sounds like a great idea.”

“Can you read to me?” He thrusts a book at Steve who examines it with mock seriousness.

“Hmmm... _Llama Llama Red Pajama_. This is looks like a bedtime book. Are you sure you want to read it now?”

“Yeah, read it now!” He scrambles down from his chair and up into Steve’s lap. Tony clears the dishes and pours another cup of coffee, listening as Steve beings the tale of a little llama, just waiting, waiting for his mama.

***

“What was the dream about?” Steve asks. They’re standing at the edge of the compound’s playground, while Peter runs a circuit from the monkey bars to the slide to the mini-trampoline.

“The Vulture, I think,” Tony says. He squints into the bright afternoon sun, tracking Peter with his eyes. There’s no trace of the quiet, reserved little boy from this morning, for which Tony is grateful. After making Steve read him two more stories, he’d jumped down from his lap, tugged at Tony’s hand and asked if they could go outside and play.

“The more he remembers, the harder this gets,” Steve says.

“I know.” He keeps his eyes fixed on Peter, who’s making his way across the monkey bars. “Do you dream about Manila?”

Steve keeps his eyes straight ahead, and Tony stares at his profile, catches the slight clench of his jaw. “No, but I don’t think a week goes by that I don’t dream about Bucky reaching for my hand.”

He forgets sometimes, the losses that they’ve all gone through. “It helped him, to hear you talk about it. The dreams, I mean. Made him less scared.”

Steve nods. “You’re not the only one who has regrets, Tony.”

He thinks about Steve’s dreams, the specific kind of horror they must dredge up, and if Steve wakes up, fighting back tears, a scream trapped in his throat. A gust of wind blows Steve’s hair across his forehead, and Tony fights the urge to push his hair back, rub his thumb along that stern crease of his mouth.

“Steve—”

“Mr. Stark! Can someone help me?”

Across the playground, Peter’s dangling from the monkey bars, his legs swinging wildly as he tries to kick his body forward.

“Oh good lord.” Steve rushes over first and grabs Peter by the waist with one hand, giving his little bottom a boost with the other. With Steve supporting him, Peter puts arm over arm, face screwed up in concentration until he makes it across. He turns around and does it again and again, until finally, he jumps off and runs to Tony, hugging him around the legs.

“Did you see me? I made it across like, a million times.” His smile is ridiculous, exactly the same one Peter gives him after a successful mission.

“I did see you. You did great, kiddo, but t looks like you had a little help.” Steve’s grinning in the distance, again with that look that Tony can’t quite place.

“That’s called teamwork,” Peter says. “We’re the Avengers! We do things like a team.”

“Touche, buddy.” Tony says, swinging Peter up into his arms.

“What does that word mean?”

“It means you’re right. We do things as a team. Come on, we’re gonna eat lunch and then your Aunt May is coming over.”

It’s just past 1 when May comes into the lab. The lab is usually his refuge but it feels oppressive right now, their combined worry suffocating. Tony’s not a man who rattles easily, but May’s arrival means he can no longer put off what he’s been dreading.

He kisses her cheek, and leads her to the table where Bruce, Hope and Steve are sitting. At his desk, Peter plays with a makeshift set of tools. She listens, growing paler by the minute, as Bruce and Hope explain what the tunnel will do.

She turns to Tony, panicked tears in her eyes. “Would you do it?”

“I don’t want to do it.” Tony answers honestly, surprised by the waver in his own voice. “But I don’t think there’s a choice. In the end though, if you say no, we don’t do it.”

“Don’t do that,” she says. “You can’t put this all on me. I can’t make this choice. Not when it comes to Peter.”

Tony swallows past the lump in his throat. “It’s not really a choice, is it?” Tony says. “It’s not about what you want or what I want. It’s about what Peter would want. We can’t steal his entire life from him. Not when there’s a chance to get it back.”

May nods and pushes back her chair. She picks up a startled Peter and squeezes him tightly, kissing his face and hair. “I love you very much, you know that right Peter?”

“I love you too,” he says absently. He squirms to be put back down again and May brushes the tears out of her eyes.

“When would it happen?” she asks.

“We have one more Tunnel simulation we need to finish running,” Hope says.

Tony feels almost faint, blood rushing from his head, as he listens to Hope and Bruce run through the timeline. It’s Steve’s hand on his knee that brings him back.

“It’ll work,” he says, so sweetly, so sincerely, that Tony almost kisses him right then. Not because he believes Steve but because Steve so clearly, desperately also wants to believe it.  
He threads their fingers together under the table for a brief moment, before steeling himself back up.

In his head, Tony’s already retreating back into his work, mentally running over the notes Hope and Bruce have sent him. He hugs May goodbye and turns back to his desk, so focused on trying to solve the problem at hand he’s almost startled to see Peter staring up at him.

“Pete, we gotta let the adults do some work. Wanna come with me?” Steve holds out his hand, which Peter reluctantly takes.

“Just an hour or so,” Tony promises and feels, in his core, that his father must have made the same promise to his mother, over and over again.

“It’s OK, I got it,” Steve says. As they leave, Peter places his feet on top of Steve’s and grabs hold of his outstretched hands. Steve does a Frankenstein walk, his legs moving stiffly out of the lab while Peter giggles uncontrollably.

His anxiety spurs him to work quicker and harder than before. He has no idea how much time’s gone by, minutes or hours or days, until Steve comes looking for him, Peter tucked against his side.

“Shit,” Tony says, looking at the clock. It’s half past four. Even though ever second away from Peter is a second spent helping him, Tony still feels like a neglectful heel.

“He’s fine,” Steve says reading his mind. “He just woke up and wanted to see you.”

Peter untangles himself from Steve and reaches over for Tony, who happily accepts the warm, sleepy bundle.

“How’s it going, kid?” Tony strokes his hair, kisses the top of his head. “You have a good day?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. And then, after a long pause. “Can I ask you something?”

He sounds serious, like whatever he wants to say has been weighing on his mind for some time. Tony catches Steve eye, who just shrugs.

“Sure Peter, what is it?”

He braces himself for questions about what Peter may have overheard about the quantum tunnel, about what it might mean for him, about why they would send him in alone.

“Can we have pizza for dinner?” Peter asks. “Maybe one kind that’s just cheese and one with pepperoni?”

“Pizza, huh?” He chuckles into Peter’s hair, relieved. “I think kids need to eat a vegetable every now and then, but yeah, I think that’s possible.”

***

Tony’s just flipping open warm boxes of melted cheese and sauce when FRIDAY interrupts.

“Boss, there’s suspected use of alien weaponry happening in a remote region on the western Canadian prairie. Satellite imagery shows radiation readings that are well off the normal range.”

“Want me to take the jet? Check it out?” Steve’s already getting up, wiping his hands.

“Nah,” Tony says, taking a closer look at the images FRIDAY sends to his phone. “I should go. Might be a heavy weapons thing.”

“You sure?” Steve raises his eyebrows in Peter’s direction but Tony just nods.

“I’ll be fine,” he says. There’s nothing more he can do in the lab that Bruce and Hope don't already have covered. “Peter, you good hanging here with Steve?”

“Where you going?” he says, through a mouthful of cheese. “Can I come?”

“Sorry buddy, this is a one man job. You stay with Steve, OK?”

“Are you doing a mission? I can help too.” He looks ready to jump off his chair, but Steve smoothly steps in.

“He’s just gonna take the Iron Man suit out for a spin, Peter. He’ll be back soon.”

Steve walks him to the door, touching his arm lightly. “Don’t do anything stupid, Tony. If it looks heavy, call us in.”

Tony winks at him. “When have I done anything stupid. Like I said, I’ll be fine.”

***

The mission —if it can even be called that—costs him a few bruised ribs, a gash across his cheek and a suit of armor. By Avengers standards, that’s as close to ‘fine’ as it gets.

It’s after 2am when he pushes open the door to his quarters. He waits in the doorway, let’s his eyes adjust to the darkness before stepping inside. It looks like tornado hit the place. There are toys scattered across the floor, books thrown around at random, one of Peter’s shirts  
hanging from a doorknob.

In the corner, Steve’s asleep on the sofa, Peter sprawled across his chest. The room is heavy with sleep and the sound of their quiet breathing. Tony stands in the doorway, watching the heavy rise of Steve’s chest, the up and down of his arm on Peter’s back, feeling something entirely new yet oddly familiar cement inside of him.

Eventually, Steve stirs.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi.” Tony reaches down, picks Peter up into his arms. Peter snuffles at the movement, but doesn’t wake.

“He didn’t want to sleep in the bed without you.”

“Was he any trouble?”

“Yes,” Steve says, rubbing his eyes. “As a warning, never let him drink an entire can of soda.”

“Oh god.” Tony chuckles and carries Peter back to his bedroom. He wakes a little as Tony puts him under the covers.

“You’re back,” Peter says, eyes still half closed. “Did you fight bad guys?”

“I sure did.” Tony finds Peter’s bear, sticks it under his arm.

“Did you win?”

“Ummhmmm,” he says, running his hand through Peter’s curls.

“Was it scary?”

“Nah, just the usual.”

“Next time, I’ll go with you, ok?”

“OK.”

“Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah, buddy.”

“Steve let me drink a soda.”

“I heard. I bet he regretted every minute of it, too.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, already falling back asleep.

Tony changes his own clothes but stops short of getting in to bed. In the living room, Steve is still on the sofa, eyes shut. He opens them when he senses Tony hovering.

“How was it?” he asks, even though he kept tabs on Tony’s mission updates. Tony sits on the edge of couch, his hip brushing Steve’s stomach.

“As expected. Some dangerous tech in some careless hands.”

“What’s the damage?” Steve reaches up, swipes his thumb across the deep cut on Tony’s cheek.

“You’re looking at it.”

“That all?”

“More or less.”

Steve’s hand circles his waist, brushing the bare skin where his t-shirt has ridden up. His fingers trail up, to the compression bandage keeping Tony’s ribs in place.

“More of less, huh?”

“A little bruising. It’s nothing.”

Steve hums his disapproval, but Tony ignores him, lulled by the quiet and warmth. He traces the curve of Steve’s top lip, thinks of all the hesitant, half-steps that he’s taken over the past two days, hedging towards this moment.

“You’re really good at all this stuff. The clothes, the toys. Just being with him.”

Even in the dim light, Tony catches Steve’s eyes soften, just a little.

“It’s nice,” he says. “To have someone to take care of.”

Tony strokes the side of Steve’s face, tips his head down and kisses him. It’s brief, just a slow but firm press of lips, and Steve tastes of sleep and mint toothpaste. He pulls back an inch, resting his forehead against Steve’s. Steve’s hand curls through his hair and keeps him there.

“It’s late,” he says.

“Yeah.”

Tony kisses him again, losing himself a little inside the soft palette of Steve’s mouth, before finally pulling away. Steve brushes his fingers up Tony’s back, across his side, before letting them drop.

“I should go,” Tony says. He heaves himself off the sofa with great effort, draping a blanket over Steve before heading back to his own room.

***

He wakes up late, the chatter of voices outside his bedroom door mingling with his dreams. Bruce, Hope and Natasha are sitting around the table with Steve, picking at the remnants of breakfast, while Sam flies Peter through the room.

“Want some coffee?” Steve hands him a warm cup, and Tony doesn’t miss the way their fingers overlap for just a little too long.

“Called in reinforcements, huh? Couldn’t handle the kid on your own?” Tony jokes.

“After last night? Not a chance.”

“Mr. Stark, I’m the Falcon!” Sam zooms Peter over to him, just long enough for Peter to deliver a good morning hug, before flying him away.

“I take it the Quantum Tunnel simulation finished running?” He takes the seat across Bruce, wishing he’d bothered to change out of his pajamas before having this conversation.

“Late last night,” Bruce says.

“And?”

Bruce taps his fingers against his empty coffee cup.“The numbers are the same,” he says.

“Fuck.”

“We won’t get any further, not anytime soon,” Hope concedes.  
Tony doesn’t take his eyes off Peter. Across the room, Sam and Natasha are letting Peter run between them, practicing take downs and leg sweeps.

“You should tell him,” Bruce says. “Explain what could happen, what he might see in there.”

Tony nods, wondering if picking up Peter’s call a few days ago might have changed any of this. “Anything else I need to know?”

Bruce clears his throat. “Tomorrow. We should do this tomorrow.”

***

It would be tempting to run to the lab, to bury himself in the things he thinks he has control over but even he’s not that big a coward. There are a few last minutes things to take care of—modify the suit, create back ups of back ups incase something truly catastrophic happens, clear out the hanger in case of fire—but he knows the team will take care of that.

He gives himself a few minuets of panic, of anger and a little bit of fear, before he gets up from the table and grabs Peter, who is in mid run, hoisting him up into the air and shaking him silly before dropping him again.

“Do it again,” Peter demands so Tony does, even though his ribs protest mightily.

“Are you working in the lab today?” Peter asks as Bruce and the others start to leave.

“Nah, buddy. I’m all yours,” Tony says, as Peter hugs him around the waist.

Tony tries to commit every moment of the day to memory, from the thunder of Peter’s feet across the floor, to the way his hair constantly falls into his eyes, to the distinct way he has of screwing up his mouth when he brushes his teeth. There are hints of the 17-year-old in everything he does and Tony can’t separate the two in his mind. This is his Peter, the one he’s always loved unconditionally, so he blocks any thoughts of the next day from his mind. For once, he does what every therapist he’s seen has suggested, and stays in the moment. At the playground, he keeps his mind on the bright sound of Peter laughing as Steve pushes him on the swing. During lunch, he watches tiny hands grip a grilled cheese, and thinks of nothing else. When Peter doesn’t want to nap, Tony lies down next to him, and they take turns naming the planets that he has FRIDAY project on the wall.

As the sun sets though, his mood starts to falter, the nearness of tomorrow more of a reality.

“Peter, I need to talk to you about tomorrow,” he says after they’re back from watching Steve and Natasha practice hand to hand. Peter looks up from his drawing, a series of stick figures Tony can’t quite get a good look at it.

“Am I going into the tunnel?”

Tony nods, and explains what might happen, what it could feel like. “You don’t need to be scared, Peter.”

“I”m not,” he says, and pushes his drawing aside to work on a new one.

At dinner, Peter scrambles into Tony’s lap the minute he sits down, refusing to eat anything that first hasn’t been on Tony’s plate. Around him, conversation flows naturally but he only feels the way Peter lolls his head against his chest, the way his leg kicks against Tony’s shin.

It’s only when Sam and Nat push their chairs away from the table that Peter jumps out of his lap. He runs over to his little desk, and picks up his stack of drawings.

“I made this,” he says and shuffles through the stack he’s been working on for the past two days. He hands the first one to Sam, beaming. “See, this is me, and you’re helping me fly.”

They’re crude stick drawings, but each piece of paper features a little scene over the past few days. He hands one to Nat, one to Scott, one to Bruce and Hope and Steve.

“Thanks for playing with me,” he says, wrapping his arms around Steve’s neck. Steve’s drawing features lopsided monkey bars, and a larger figure standing next to a smaller one. Steve doesn’t say anything, can’t say anything around the lump in his throat. He hugs Peter tightly and doesn’t bother hiding the tears in his eyes.

“I like my drawing very much, Peter. Thank you.”

Tony loves Peter, has cared for him ever since he walked into their apartment in Queens and spit nut loaf out into a napkin. What he never saw though, was how he wasn’t the only one. He looks at Peter’s drawings and thinks about Natasha, who carefully padded Peter’s knees and elbows before letting him jump around the simulation room. Of Scott, who, when they were clamoring all over Tony’s couch, kept a hand at the ready to catch Peter so he wouldn’t crack his head open. Or how Sam, when flying Peter around the room, had kept him steady and supported, so he could feel like he was really soaring. How Bruce and Hope haven’t slept in days, consumed totally with the bringing Peter back. And Steve. Steve who jumped into the water after Peter outside of Manila. Steve who picked out his clothes, who talked to him quietly about nightmares, who rushed across the playground when it looked like Peter might fall. He’s never been alone in this, he realizes with a sharp pang. In taking care of Peter, in loving him, in wanting to keep him safe.

***  
Tony doesn’t sleep that night. He lies in bed, running over the calculations again and again until finally, sometime around 4am, his eyes just finally shut. It’s Peter playing quietly with his bear that wakes him a few hours later.

“I didn’t make you a drawing,” Peter says apologetically.

“That’s OK.” Tony says, his voice a low rumble.

“You don’t need one to remember me, right?”

Tony pulls him in tight, kissing the top of his head. “No buddy, I don’t need one to remember you.”

He cuddles Peter close to him, gives him an extra long hug before letting him go, but Peter doesn’t move. He stays in sprawled with his head resting against Tony’s chest, thumb brushing his collar. They spend a little longer in bed, acting out the Battle for New York, before Tony finally throws back the covers.

They eat breakfast, though Tony can’t choke anything down. He’s just tugging a sweater over Peter’s head when Steve knocks on the door.

“We’re all set.”

They walk down to the hanger together, Peter holding both their hands and swinging between them. Outside the door, Tony crushes him to his chest.

“Your squishing me,” Peter complains but Tony only squeezes harder.

They’re all gathered in the hanger, Bruce and Hope in radiation suits, May hovering in the corner, her eyes already watery. She takes Peter from his arms, hugs him tightly.

“You ready kid? Tony asks, as they zip him up into a modified suit.

He nods.

“All you have to do is stand here, nothing else.”

“Peter,” Hope squats next to him “If it becomes a really long time and you don’t see us, I want you to hit this red button on your hand OK? It might help us find you.”

He’s trying to be brave but Tony can see the uncertainty in his eyes.

Tony couches down, takes Peter by the shoulders and smooths back his hair. “You don’t have to worry. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, Peter. If you get lost I’ll come find you.”

“Like the llama mama,” Peter says. “You’re here, even if you aren’t near.”

Tony blinks back the sudden spring of tears. “That’s right, Peter. I’m always here.”

Steve puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m gonna miss you, buddy. We all are.” he says.

“Why?” Peter says, grinning. “I’m coming right back.”

They wait well outside the radius of the tunnel, watching as Bruce and Hope start the countdown sequence. May grips his hand tightly, her face turned into his shoulder. Steve stands on his other side, stoic but steady. Tony can hardly bear to look. Instead of watching Bruce and Hope, he keeps his eyes fixed on Peter, what little he can see of him, and starts hoping. He doesn’t pray to any god, just whatever force there might be that could push Peter safely back out to them. He’s never felt this out of control, this overwhelmed, and for a regrettable second, wishes he had never decided to enter that apartment in Queens.

The Tunnel fires up, the noise almost deafening and before he can think anything else, a brief white hot flash of light blinds them all.

***

Peter isn’t waiting for them when the light dissipates. There’s a large empty space where he should be and Tony almost faints.

“What happened?” May’s rushing into the room, but Steve holds her back.

“We’re gonna try again. There are three different frequencies we can use,” Bruce’s voice comes over the intercom but he sounds tense.

Tony nods, eyes frozen where Peter should be. “Come on, come on, come on….”

They try again and again, and both times, nothing works.

Steve pulls May into his arms, holding her while Tony stands there helpless, thinking about Manila, how still Peter had been when he came back.

11 minutes pass. 11 agonizing minutes where they try to push the boundaries of quantum mechanics, the radiation and energy signature in the building going up astronomically, until finally, Bruce tries the final sequence, filling the room with light.

The whirring comes to an end, and Peter, taller and older, stands before them.

“Dr. Banner! Did it work?” He looks around the room, looks down at his own hands and feet, trying to gauge his size. “Guys, am I supposed to be naked under this suit?”

“Peter!” May’s rushing through the door and Tony has to put his hands on his knees for a second. He’s shaking badly, adrenaline and relief making him light headed.  
“He’s OK. He looks just fine,” Steve says, squeezing his hand.

There are plenty of cheers and a few tears as they all rush into the hanger. He’s able to grab Peter for a few seconds before he gets pulled away by everyone else. Nat, Bruce, Steve, Sam can’t help but pinch his cheeks again.

There’s a flood of questions. What does he remember—”some things but not everything”—what did it feel like—”like being underwater”—does he feel sick, hungry tired—”no, no and yes”.

They need to do tests and check his blood and make sure there’s no radiation poisoning and his abilities are still there and none of it can wait. Tony hangs back as Bruce takes him down to the medical wing, let’s May hold his hand all the way there. There are too many people around so Tony—relieved, grateful, but exhausted—heads up to his room.

The toys are gone, the clothes are gone, the furniture all put back in place. He’s not sure if he’s mad or grateful at Steve for taking care of it. The only thing left is Peter’s bear, and _Llama Llama Red Pajama_ , tucked discreetly into a corner of his bookshelf.

“I had the staff come in and put it all in storage,” Steve says, leaning in the doorway.

“For the best,” Tony says. He picks up the bear, and can’t quite push the image of little Peter out of his mind. He’s grateful beyond measure to have Peter back but he feels a deep well of grief suddenly for the little boy he’ll never see again. “You were right,” he says, putting the bear down. “It was nice having someone to take care of.”

Steve crosses the room, pulls Tony into his arms. “This is not what I thought I’d feel,” Tony says against his chest. Steve runs a hand up his back, tangles his fingers through the short hairs at the back of his neck.

“Still, something good came from this right?” Steve kisses him, something slow and sweet, that fills Tony with a little bit of promise and hope. They pull apart only when the door bell chimes.

“Mr. Stark?”

For a second, Tony can see them both, four-year-old Peter hiding inside Peter’s lopsided smile, in the way his left ear still sticks out slightly. “Hey, kid.”

Peter hesitates, but Tony holds out his hand and Peter rushes toward it. “I missed you,” he says into Peter’s hair. Peter only turns his face into Tony’s neck, his fingers digging into Tony’s back.

“It’s OK,” he says. “You made it. You’re alright.”

Peter nods against his chest and Tony knows they have days and days to talk over what happened, what Peter remembers and what he doesn’t.

“Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah, kid.”

“Can we have pizza for dinner? Cheese and pepperoni?”

He catches Steve’s laugh, blinks the tears out of his eyes.

“Throw in a salad, but yeah, I think we can do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's probably a little too much cuddling in his fic? Do four-year-olds nap every day? Probably not!


End file.
